Winter MelonJam 2025 Rules

    1. Submit during the alloted time slot (December 26th 5 PM UTC - December 29th 4:59 PM UTC) to Itch

    2. To be eligible for a prize, you must provide an adequate explanation for how your game fits the theme when submitting your game. You must also fulfill the requirements for your division OR lower. No smurfing.
    3. Any digital project that is not malware may be submitted. Keep in mind, however, that the judging criteria may limit your success if you do not submit a game that fits the theme announced at the beginning of the jam.
    4. All submissions must be developed during the allotted time slot. However, you are free to use any assets (music, 3d models, etc.) and tools (game engines, graphic design programs, etc.) that you made yourself or are given permission to use by the creators, such as through a creative commons license, an open-source license, or a purchase. If you choose to do so, you must mention this in your submission. Judges may take points off or award points based on pre-made assets.
    5. Participants may work alone, or form teams of up to 4 members in order to work on their submission. Participants can unofficially be in multiple teams, but cannot win prizes more than once per jam-- participants must choose one team to sign on with.
    6. The Cupertino Game Development Club reserves the right to not consider any uploaded games for prizes if the content does not follow the theme or is offensive or unsuitable. This includes but is not limited to: games with harmful or prejudicial themes related to gender, sexual orientation, age, ability, appearance, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship, or religion.
    7. You may use any engines or tools at your disposal except for generative AI. No AI art, code, music, or any other assets is allowed.
    8. Participants who do not adhere to the rules above may have their submission canceled, or even banned from all future game jams hosted by the Cupertino Game Development Club.

Scoring

For the advanced prize, each game submitted to the MelonJam game jam will be given a score out of 10 for each judging criterion. These scores will then be summed. The game with the highest score will be the winner of the advanced prize. If there are multiple games with the highest score, they will be given a holistic review by the judges, who will then come to a joint decision about which project is the winner of the advanced prize out of all of the games with the highest score.

For the novice prize, the procedure will be the same as the scoring of games for the advanced prize, except that only games that are eligible for the novice prize(read above) will be scored